


Not My Dad

by beyondbirthday667



Series: Writing prompts/short stories [1]
Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Horror, Other, Short Story, Writing Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22994968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondbirthday667/pseuds/beyondbirthday667
Summary: I'm sick of pointing a gun at my dad through my window at 2am as he pleas "Come on Jake. Just let your old paw in. I'm tired." and replying "You're not my dad. He's asleep in the other room. I hear him snoring." then watching his expression go sour as he turns back toward the woods.Just a writing prompt I was that I decided to write. First time doing this so hopefully it's alright.
Series: Writing prompts/short stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652605





	Not My Dad

It’s a Wednesday night, well technically Thursday morning, and my clock reads 2:07am. I have work at the small convenience store 2 miles up the road at 10am sharp. And yet here I am, just like every night, awake when I shouldn’t be, reading a book under my lamp light.

I know I should be asleep right now. It may not be a hard job, but at 20 in a small town like this it’s really the only one I can get. I know I shouldn’t be testing my luck by showing up sleep deprived every morning.

But it’s almost impossible to get to sleep now, since I know what is about to come.

It’s like this almost every night. It always happens around this time too. Yet for something that is so real to me, that haunts my nightmares and consumes almost all my waking thoughts, I sure do have a hard time proving it exists to someone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tired so many times. Asking my dad to stay up with me countless nights to prove I’m not insane. Having high school friends, back when I was still in high school, stay over the night for a “study group”. Even having mom sleep in my bed with me back when she was still alive.

None of it worked, of course. Every single time I wasn’t alone, the thing never showed up. Suspiciously absent, making me look insane. It even got to the point my dad set up a doctors appointment for me because he was so worried about me. Luckily by that point I had just turned 18, and just refused to go. I really only got away with that by admitting that maybe it was just stress from school. Maybe it wasn’t real, maybe I just needed to relax more when I got home, study just a little less; go to bed just a little bit earlier.

I had just given up hope, no one was ever going to believe me, and that thing was going to torment me every night I was alone until I finished college and got the hell out of this town. And I planned to, to go far far away. I would leave at sunrise in my old 2004 Ford pickup and never look back. Maybe I would come visit on the holidays, maybe I wouldn’t.

So lost in my thoughts that it was actually able to make me jump up in surprise for the first time in months. Normally I’d already have my hand gun out from inside my bedside table drawer. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing I could afford at 20 with my shitty job and without letting my oh so worried parent know about it. If mom were still alive she’d have a fit.

But no, not tonight, tonight I was caught off guard by the knocking at my window. This almost never happens, and I berate myself for it.

To be honest, I’m getting sick of pointing my gun at my dad through my window every night at 2am as he pleas, “Come on Jake. Just let your old paw in. I’m tired.” and replying “You’re not my dad. He’s asleep in the other room. I can hear him snoring.”, then watching his expression go sour as he turns back toward the woods just outside our little house.

Honestly, I don’t know why it still tries. This has been going on for nearly five years, and never once did I almost let him in. Except of course, the first time it showed up. I remember it clear as day, it was summer, and I was only fifteen years old. Mom was asleep in the back bedroom, and dad was out late at his towing job, something about making a midnight repo of a car that was 8 months behind on its payment that the client had been hiding at a friends house so as not have to give it up.

I was in the kitchen, making a “midnight” snack as I had woken up to use the bathroom and my stomach wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. As I pull the jelly out of the fridge, my heart nearly plummeted to the bottom of my rib cage; through the back door I could see my dad. Just standing there, staring at me. I put the jelly down on the counter next to the jar of peanut butter I had already had out and let out a short laugh. 

“You scared me there, paw.” I said as I walked over to the door, hand reaching out to the deadbolt he had installed not just 3 months prior do to a break in while we were all out at the school, watching the school football game, cheering on my best friend that was the “Star player”. 

“Yeah, sorry about that, left my keys on the counter and didn’t realize it until now.” 

He smiled at me sheepishly, and I made to go poke fun at him like I always did, when the phone rang. 

That was strange, who would be calling this late at night? I turned to look over at the phone in the living room, and just as I did I missed the look of anger on my dads face as he smacked his hand on the glass. 

“What are you doing Jake? Let me in now.” He grabbed the handle and violently shook it while I stood frozen in shock. My dad was never like this, I almost never saw him angry. He was always a quiet spoken man, with not many words to say. 

I took a step back, my still half asleep mind trying to make sense of what was happening. He hit the glass with his hand harder, raddled the door nob faster, so fast I almost thought he would break it. His dusty blue eyes slowly turned a dark shade of brown, so dark you could almost call them black.

Was I dreaming? I slowly backed up to the phone, while whoever that was that resembled my dad almost to perfection, stared me down and continuously demanded that I come back and open the damn door already. 

I picked up the phone, maybe I was dreaming. The voice on the other end made me catch my breath. It felt like I couldn’t breathe as my dad’s tired voice came through the line telling me that he was happy someone was awake, because he left his house keys on the counter before leaving. And to please stay awake until he got there.

I just barely managed to choke out a “sure” while the other dad suddenly stopped. His face, if possible, took on a darker hue as he turned around and headed towards the woods a quarter mile from our house. I watched him through the kitchen door for as long as I could as my real dad asked if I was okay over the phone.

“Yeah dad, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure, you sound sick. Do you feel hot? I heard that Stacy girl down the road caught the flu, even though it’s summer.”

“No dad, I feel fine, I just woke up, so that’s probably it.”

“Oh, well, I should be home soon, then you can go straight back to bed.”

“Alright.”

I stayed by the front door the whole time, looking out the window, my midnight PB and J snack already forgotten. I stayed there until his old 1997 Chevy pulled into the drive way. The man that got out of the car had to be my dad, so I felt safer letting him in. 

As soon as the door closed behind him and the lock turned, I threw myself on him in a bear hug. 

“Woah sport, you alright?”

“Yeah dad, I’m fine. I’m just fine.”


End file.
